


How to Make Underswap Sans: Antidepressants?

by ArgentDandelion



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Analysis, Depressed Sans (Undertale), Depression, Gen, Identity, Loss of Identity, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-24 02:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21331009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion
Summary: Some fans theorize Sans has depression, as it explains a lot about his behavior. But if those depression-indicating behaviors are part of what makes him recognizable, would taking antidepressants make him not Sans?
Kudos: 53





	How to Make Underswap Sans: Antidepressants?

**Author's Note:**

> ### Related Reading
> 
> **Please, please spread the love to my other works. This doesn't deserve to be disproportionately popular. I've had to suppress the "blood supply" to this work by making it available only to logged-in users.**
> 
> [**Flowey and PTSD** ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20165746/chapters/47775952)(_**Warning:** Severe mental illness and trauma)_  
[**Papyrus is (Probably) A Better Boyfriend than Sans**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20212504/chapters/47898157) (Character Analysis with the theme of an ideal boyfriend)  
**[Undyne’s Prejudice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20419859/chapters/48441224)** (Character analysis of one aspect of a character’s personality)

## How to Make Underswap Sans: Antidepressants?

Sans is a disproportionately popular Undertale character: many Alternate Universe (AU) fanworks focus on Sans, to the point some fanworks’ only character is a version of Sans. But what defines Sans as Sans?

The [poll on the subject](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.strawpoll.me%2F17275497&t=MWIxY2VhOTU1MWVkZjRlMTExMGFjMjYwYTAxMmUwMTczZDdjMTE2NixVVnBibGh6Rw%3D%3D&b=t%3AHZZTbr56CX-Pu8cYzedJTw&p=https%3A%2F%2Fargentdandelion.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F188844025058%2Fhow-to-make-underswap-sans-antidepressants&m=1) says that the following traits, if removed, would make Sans not be himself. The top three, in bold, have an 11% vote, while the others have a 9% or 8% vote.

  * • **Makes jokes/puns**
  * • **Close bond with Papyrus**
  * • **Is lazy**
  * • Keeps boosting his brother
  * • Papyrus existing
  * • Secretly powerful
  * • Sleeps a lot
  * • Lies to people/trolls people (e.g., selling “fried snow”)

Some of Sans’ defining traits are conditional, subjective, or infrequent. For example, Sans may be powerful, but he’s secretly powerful: he only shows how strong he is in the Genocide Route, when he’s at his most desperate and despairing.

Sans’ laziness is an especially consistent, important, and complicated trait. Even in the Genocide Route battle, when he actually puts in some effort, much of his damage is dealt passively through the poison-like KR damage. There are multiple explanations for why he sleeps and slacks off so much: he might be nocturnal, spend many hours in his secret workshop at night, or his sentry jobs are simply so boring he has nothing better to do than nap.

However, Papyrus’s dialogue suggests something else:

> **Papyrus:** HE’S GOTTEN REALLY OUT OF SHAPE. HE TIRES EASILY. LATELY HE’S BEEN NAPPING OVER 7 HOURS A NIGHT… HE’S NAPPING HIMSELF INTO AN EARLY GRAVE!! (Near Sans’ first Hotland station, Papyrus phone call)

Papyrus’ dialogue suggests Sans’ traits of slowness, weakness, tiredness and excessive sleeping are recent developments. Undyne’s statement on Sans making “100’s _[sic]_ of midnight snacks” might mean he has insomnia or irregular eating patterns, too.

While his knowledge of individual resets seems limited to feelings of deja vu and his improbable face-reading abilities, Sans is aware resets are happening. Thus, some figure Sans’ helplessness facing a time-warper in the Flowey Runs, and the pointlessness of doing anything when time is going to be reset, is responsible for Sans’ behavioral changes.

In fact, some fans suggest the Flowey Runs gave him depression.

* * *

## Depression

Given his symptoms, this is a plausible idea. Sans sleeping and slacking off a lot, his (possible) lack of hygiene, and putting low effort in snow sculptures, puzzles, and room-cleaning are all aspects of his “laziness”, but also parallel the behavior of depressed people. Depressed people have little motivation or energy, so, rather than being “lazy”, Sans may lack the resources to do non-critical tasks.

On a weaker note, Sans’ recurring, light-hearted punning and jokes could be a symptom of his depression, a happy mask to prevent anyone worrying about him. After all, depressed people may use humor to deal with their illness, and it’s well-known good comedians often have mental illness.

Some fans even suppose Sans’ low stats are caused by him having depression, based off the Snowdin library books saying “If a monster doesn’t want to fight, its defenses will weaken” and “Because they are made of magic, monsters’ bodies are attuned to their SOUL”. If true, that would link yet another distinctive trait to depression. Yet, if Sans only got depression recently, then his humor attempts, low stats, and “laziness” may not be true facets of his personality. However, the poll shows that if these traits were taken away, he wouldn’t be himself. If Sans indeed has depression, then would taking magic antidepressants make him not Sans?

* * *

## Recognizability and AU Sanses

Sans himself might still feel a continuity of identity between a possibly-depressed state and a recovered state. After all, some people figure their depression is part of their personality, and others do not. However, a non-depressed Sans might not be recognizable to the Player or Frisk.

One problem with guessing Sans’ “true” personality (or how he used to be before the Flowey Runs) is that Undertale players only know Sans as he exists within roughly one day. For example, Sans could, unbeknownst to Papyrus, work out every Wednesday, but people wouldn’t know about this if the game took place on a Tuesday. Sans could have had ambitions, a la Papyrus, before meeting Frisk: there’s no way of knowing. Perhaps he still joked, but his jokes were better. (Papyrus puns a lot himself, so he seems to groan at Sans’ puns because they are bad puns.)

Before developing depression, he could have been more active and slept less, and the same could happen in reverse if his depression abates. Overall, he might have been somewhat closer to the energetic and purposeful Papyrus…or, in other words, like Underswap Sans. Though Underswap Sans is often portrayed as “Papyrus’ mind in Sans’ body”, transplanting all of Papyrus’s traits is likely unnecessary to make an energetic and purposeful version of Sans.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my [Tumblr](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/). The author enjoys comments, so feel free to comment here or on Tumblr.


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